


All My Dreams And All The Lights Mean Nothing

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Reality, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>they say that the world was built for two, only worth living if somebody is loving you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All My Dreams And All The Lights Mean Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted [here](http://fanbros.livejournal.com/1403.html).

In one universe, Louis is the Welsh pop star, and Harry is the American wallflower. They meet at a party and play the roles they were born to. Louis wears a locket in the shape of a heart that peaks gold underneath the buttons of his shirt and catches Harry's eye. Harry wears a beanie and a t-shirt with a picture of The Kills on it. Their conversation is loaded, heated, and Louis's hand where it comes to rest on Harry's hip after only ten minutes sets his skin on fire. Louis talks about Paris, the smells and the smoke, and Harry melts into his accent like putty, already coming undone. 

Have you been, Harry?

Harry shakes his head, no. He hasn't been to Wales either. He's been asleep his whole life, dreaming of white rooms and Indiana sunshine. Louis takes his hand and leads him into another room, subtle touches, quiet and intense in a way that draws all attention to him and makes Harry's head spin. This loud Welsh boy, this primadonna pop star. Presses marks into Harry's skin with his fingertips and licks along the line of Harry's mid western tan. 

In all of these universes, Louis is there. But only in one does Harry get to keep him. 

 

~

 

Louis holds up the locket, all eighteen carats of it, with his eyes narrowed in an attempt to be discerning. Maybe he sees something. Harry can't see anything. It's nice, though. He says as much, but Louis shoots him a look that says he's unimpressed. Harry keeps his opinion to himself after that. 

"Do you think she'll like it?"

Harry bites his lip, nods. 

"It's pretty, isn't it?" Rhetorical. Whatever he's looking for, it isn't an answer. "It's pretty. Not a golden lab, but mum's already vetoed that plan. It'll slobber less on the carpet, anyway."

"Next birthday, then," Harry says. 

"Daisy will just have to learn she can't get everything." He shrugs as he says it, but there's no conviction in his voice, and when he turns his gaze back to Harry there's a mischievousness that makes his eyes sparkle. 

"Clearly she's not learning that from her big brother," Harry chides. 

Louis gasps dramatically. "I'm the best big brother."

"Yeah, you spoil those girls. They're lucky to have you, Louis."

Louis makes a small noise in the back of his throat. "They miss their uncle Harry, are you coming to visit over the holidays?"

"Of course," Harry replies instantly. Something soft flashes across Louis's eyes and he smiles, genuine and warm. He turns to the saleswoman, who's watching them with a desperate cheerfulness of too-long hours underpinned by a backlog of bills and the pressure of keeping the customer's attention. In this universe, Harry understands bills, and long hours, and indecisive customers, and a real Christmas with someone else's family. Louis hands the locket back and reaches for his wallet. 

 

~

 

Harry's eighteen and in love with a boy. Harry's sixteen and in love with world. He's twenty-eight and lonely. Harry's a singer in an indie band and he's a grade school gym teacher with too much hair and extra padding and he's a _Tigerbeat_ pop star and he's walking down the runway in Milan and he's happy, in all of these universes he's happy. 

He has Louis in this universe, too, but he doesn't get to keep him.

 

~

 

Louis is a natural with kids. If it wasn't for X Factor Harry could see him teaching prep, or being a nurse like his mum at a kid's hospital, or something hands-on, like a little league coach. Singing teacher, maybe. Something not confined to a classroom and rules. Louis's never been that good at following the rules. 

They spend the day reading to sick kids who Louis says make him miss his sisters, even as he pulls them into hugs and listens to them tell stories about school and the nurses and treatment like there's no where else he'd rather be. His eyes lit up, putting on voices and pulling faces to make the kids smile even for a second, and Harry is reminded all over again how easy it is to fall in love with him. Feels like his heart is dangling from his sleeve for the whole hospital to see. The kids pull out stickers and cover all five of them, glittered, bright, Niall trying to shield himself with his hands over his head as the kids climb all over him, reigning down a war with stickers as their ammunition.

Louis ends up with guitars on his hands, stars on his forehead, a heart on his cheek, and Harry doesn't feel so exposed after that. 

 

~

 

In every universe, they fall into each other like comets. Unavoidably, spectacularly, disastrously. 

Harry is overwhelmed. "Where-" he starts, breath catching in his throat like it's as stunned as the rest of him, "where did you learn to do that?"

Louis shrugs, and his face falls a little, betrays a hint of shame that makes Harry immediately regret asking. "Well, you know. Couldn't wait for you forever." A smile creeps onto his face, even as he jokes, "I have _needs_ ," but it doesn't reach his eyes. 

Louis looks so gorgeous, naked, flushed, and sweaty, stretched out on the mattress, his hair a mess, and marks sucked into his skin. Harry's mouth and fingers and tongue undoing his pristine, polished image, the stage persona that bleeds into his real life. Even if Harry wouldn't change a thing about him, roughing him up still sends a thrill of possessive heat through him that transforms into full-on jealousy at Louis's words. 

It must show on his face, because Louis says, "What."

"Nothing. Getting jealous, that's all."

As soon as he says it Louis's eyes light up and his smile this time is genuine. "Aw, sweetums." He pulls Harry closer by the waist and even that is enough to get Harry's heart racing again, a smile splitting his own face, body going liquid at Louis's touch. He'd be embarrassed at his reaction if he wasn't so used to it. Even in the beginning it was just natural, the way they were drawn to each other, this pull that overpowered almost everything else in his life until Louis became the centre that everything else was shadowed by. Harry squirms at the feeling of Louis's fingers digging into his ticklish skin, inciting small, undignified shrieks that spur Louis on more, Harry's face hidden in his neck even as he begs for mercy, and Louis's laugh drowns him out. 

 

~

 

Harry gets sad sometimes, though he thinks he shouldn't. Shouldn't be sad, not when he's a teenage millionaire and his picture hangs up in every young girl's bedroom and he's got four best friends that are more than brothers, and he's got Louis, he's got. 

Sufjan croons from the speakers of his laptop, soft ballads that pierce right to the heart of him. Half a bottle of wine sits on the floor, in reach of the arm that hangs over the bed -- the other half warming Harry's stomach, turning his muscles leaden and numb. He's got his laptop open to Louis's facebook page and his mind blank to the smiling faces glaring at him from the screen. Greece sunlight sets them both on fire, radiating; he can hear their laughter from a continent away and it breaks his heart. He's never been the spiteful type, the needlessly mean-spirited, but the wine strips him of his decency and in that moment it's so easy just to hate what he can't change. 

If Louis was here with him, they wouldn't need escape, they wouldn't need Greece. If Louis was there, Harry wouldn't need wine. 

Louis comes back a week later, smelling of mediterranean sunburn and sex and Eleanor's perfume. Harry still needs the wine. 

 

~

 

The way Louis looks at him across the stage as he hits that note in "Moments" and he catches it, probably after the cameras do but definitely before Louis turns away, shakes his head in amazement and that's just too much. Pride on Louis's face and adoration stabbing Harry in the gut, violently, intimately. He feels it every day, and it doesn't feel like something he's meant to survive. 

When the song finishes and the lights go down Harry can feel Louis's eyes on him from across the stage, catches his eye when the stage lights up again because he knew Louis was looking, waiting, and Harry's never been able to disappoint. 

 

~

 

The party winds down to a lull and come two am everyone's shuffled out, Harry still wiping the cake and vodka from his clothes, getting birthday wishes as his guests leave that he can barely hear over the ringing in his ears. House is a mess, he's bone tired. Sleep and the alcohol buzzing through his system pulls him in as soon as he makes it to his bedroom and the last thought he has is to find Louis and tell him goodnight, but he's under before he can make his boneless body move. 

He doesn't hear the sounds of the two people in the other room through the night. He wakes up and pushes through the pounding in his head, alcohol his old friend, the cotton bunching up in his mouth, clothes everywhere and empty bottles, half empty glasses, the sunlight masking the destruction in the way time has of lessening the impact, and Louis nowhere in sight. Phantom touches of a wrist the night before. A voice, that Doncaster accent, breathed into his skin for only a moment between the toasts and the sound system breaking, _happy birthday, Harry_ , body pressed and warm and heated and close, but it was sweeter than the blue label Harry poured down his throat all night. 

The memory of it lashes through his stomach, hot, ugly, raw; it burns him. He shivers. 

He finds water and ibuprofen and a seat cushion to sit on that doesn't reek of spills, when a girl walks through the living room, blonde, the blondest, green eyes, long legs, a name buried under the fog of Harry's memory, and stops. Surprised-wide eyes. As if she didn't know he would be here. Pulls Louis's button up around her to hide the nothing underneath. 

Harry stares. Waits. Gets a, "hi, again," sheepish, would be endearing under normal circumstances, and "thanks for inviting me to the party." She's beautiful, even now, the morning after-party. But she's here. 

Harry watches her edge back through the open door, hears, "your roommate's awake," and a mumbled _shit_. 

Shit. 

Louis, when he comes out, is all smiles and good mornings and I'm making some eggs, want any?s and the just-got-fucked kind of cheery that Harry hates when it's Eleanor, hates now because it's not. 

"Lou?" he says, loud as he can manage with a bad feeling in his gut and vocal cords that protest at the thought of asking. They hear a bang from the next room and Louis calls out, "Giselle?", gives Harry an apologetic smile like he's sorry she's in his space, but he doesn't look sorry. Not the kind of sorry that conveys actual regret. 

"Lou," he says, but the sound gets stuck in his throat and Louis doesn't hear him because he's back in the other room, hushed voices answering Harry instead. 

 

Eleanor calls. Of course, she was always going to eventually. Louis ignores his responsibility until it lands in Harry's lap. She says, happy birthday by the way. Says, sorry I can't say it in person, and it sounds so genuine Harry could cry, it's not just from the bourbon burning holes in his stomach. They talk too long for their grudges to matter, and only after they hang up does he realise she never asked to speak to Louis. She didn't ask Harry to lie. 

 

~

 

"So now you're a big pop star," Harry starts. He can't keep the smile out of his voice and relishes the groan that answers him. "So now you're famous and international and bigger than The Beatles and all that, will you still call me?"

He doesn't mean to sound hopeful. After four years the hope of ever getting back together was crushed under the weight of Louis's celebrity. Harry waited for him, like he said he would, and they're here now, and maybe that's why he's hopeful. 

Maybe it's not hope, though. Harry's still working on believing that he's here. 

Louis fingers the belt loop on Harry's jeans while a smile breaks slowly across his face. This newfound bashfulness is surprising, but Harry doesn't mind so much. He loves everything about Louis, unashamedly. 

"I dunno," Louis replies, but he glances up through his eyelashes as he says it. "Might have to make it worth my while. I'm a very busy man now, Curly."

"Do I have to kill anyone? I've heard what your fans say. They sound like tough competition."

Louis barks out a laugh. They kiss at the door, soft and sweet and too much like how it used to be. They might as well be teenagers again, huddled together under a quilt on Louis's roof and talking shit about their dreams. Louis tastes like homemade pancakes and Harry carries that sensation with him when he leaves, wary that it might be the last time he'll know it, but hopeful that it won't. 

 

~

 

"That's how it's played," Louis says one night, as he pushes another one out the door. Giselle, Lizza, Sammi, Paul, Sergio, Rae, Dina, Vinnie, a string of names Harry's lost count of. Not one of them looks like Eleanor, has her smile or her laugh and Harry can guess the reason Louis doesn't let them stick around. 

"How what's played?"

Louis flashes a bright, plastic smile. He's been doing that a lot, lately. Maybe the wind blew and he got stuck that way. 

"The game. There are rules, you know."

Harry doesn't, but he nods anyway.

 

~

 

The shortwave radio crackles static in Harry's mind, fragments and voices of lives he isn't living. Louis's voice blaring through in short bursts just a week after that party, the one where Harry was sweet and Louis was sharp and the edges Harry didn't know he had were rubbed away by Louis's sandpaper-fingers until he was raw, new, pure. Lucky, he whispered, gasped, so lucky, blinded and blown wide open. One week and Harry is still raw, but he will never be as pure as he was then. 

Louis's voice is sandpaper on gravel that runs through Harry's head like a melody. First loves, like alcohol, like addiction, they run fast and wear you down, they fuck you up. He cuts himself on the bread-slicer that afternoon and the sight of his blood dripping onto the floor spins him. Feels like love, or lust, or quiet sadness in summer heat. Dreams he gave up to work in a bakery, a party he went to at eighteen where he met a boy and every life he could have lived crowded into his heart to choke him. The people he could have been staring at him across the room as Louis took his hand and led him away from them.

Staring listless at his phone and the messages that never came. Grabbing Louis as he walked out the door, kissing him once more with feeling, hard enough to savour it. Counting himself not so lucky, after all. 

 

~

 

She's out the door in less than a minute, heels in hand and polite smile flashed Harry's way, Louis ushering her out of the apartment, kissing her before he shuts the door. When she's gone Louis leans back against the door, heaves a small sigh. 

Harry stares again, caught staring; can't seem to help himself. Louis is all angles and sides and masks and usually Harry stares in fascination, but this side is new and he's not sure if he likes it. This one's voice is the same and his hands are the same and his touch, too, when he cups Harry's face and whispers _morning, sunshine, happy real birthday_.

"Lou," Harry says, hoarse almost beyond words. Louis doesn't take his hands away, still smiling. "Does Eleanor know?"

For a split second Louis's eyes cloud over and Harry feels so vulnerable, so timid and small. Like he's waiting for the storm to come through. Louis drags his eyes away from Harry's, hands away from his face, and it's all the answer Harry needs. 

"Lou," Harry says, because it's the only word he knows with any conviction. The only one that's real. But then Louis's gone again, disappearing into the kitchen, and Harry is left alone with the awful feeling in his stomach, making up Louis's excuses for him. 

 

~

 

Harry's band fails and the only thing keeping him from falling apart is Louis. 

Through all Louis's relapses and the six jobs he's worked in two months, unable to see his sisters, thrown out of home and onto Harry's doorstep, he's been the only constant in Harry's life. 

With no steady income they can't pay the rent and their American dream slips through their hands and trickles back into Louis's veins. Harry watches him slowly waste himself away, saying each time he hits bottom there's nowhere else for him to go but up, up, up. Scrabbling for purchase on the lifelines Harry throws him every time, and every time slipping back down. Built broken-hearted, a new personality whenever he opens his mouth for whoever will give him what he needs. He curls his body into Harry's during the night. Says the same thing he does every night, but Harry's a sucker for a broken cause. 

"I'm fucked up," Louis says. 

"So's everyone."

"I'm more fucked up than most," Louis says and Harry pulls him closer.

"Doesn't matter." Tucks Louis's face into his chest and, god, he's so thin he's like paper. "Wouldn't trade you."

"There's no where for us to go."

"As long as we're together," Harry says, pictures paper shredded in the wind, "it'll be okay."

But that's not true, not in this universe. Harry's starting to get it, now. 

 

~

 

They meet at a restaurant, this time. Louis's the waiter with the smile and the charm. Harry's high off...something. Cocaine, probably, since the speed wore off and he needed a buffer to the comedown. The night is too early for sobriety. A tiny brunette hangs off his arm, the centrefold kind with more legs than sense and giggles too softly and stumbles and draws attention their way. 

Harry is used to attention, his mugshots splashed in yesterday's tabloids next to a screenshot of his last movie when he looked healthy and in control. But that was months ago, and his future isn't looking so bright. The brunette was his management's idea to straighten out his image. Be seen with a low-profile female celebrity, one that hasn't been linked to any crack dens yet. She's higher than he is, and he can't remember her name. 

He's not sorry to ruin her image. If anything, she's being enlightened. 

Louis's attention is different. He smiles when he brings their menus and Harry is hit with an intimate familiarity of that smile, those lips, the tongue tapping against his teeth in staccato as he talks, the fine stubble on his jaw, the delicate flex of his nostrils. 

He's lived this life before. He gets it, now. 

Louis recites the specials. His hands move as he talks. His starch-white button up hugs his body, the body that, in another life, Harry put his mouth all over until Louis cried out and the only word he knew was Harry's name, repeated in a voice hoarse and abused. 

Harry has lived this life before. It didn't work out that well for him then. 

Their hands touch when Louis takes back the menu and it isn't an accident. Harry holds on. Louis's eyes narrow a fraction in what is probably disgust at Harry's state, and certainly isn't what Harry is used to getting when he walks into a room. Louis leaves with their order -- drinks, only -- and Harry watches him go, but not before he catches sight of the tattoo on the inside of Louis's wrist, the strip of red and a bow that matches the one on Harry's ankle. 

Every so often their eyes meet across the restaurant and Harry feels the pull. The rest of the people in the room soon fade out to the sight of Louis glancing up at him. Everyone else is reduced to a supporting role, their voices the dull roar of a tuneless soundtrack, background noise, but Louis is the star. Harry stares too often. Keeps fiddling with the magnets under his skin and the string tied around his wrist. 

 

~

 

It was never meant to turn into this. Loving Louis was a natural thing; he could no more stop it from happening than he could stop singing, or laughing, or trying to get Louis to love him back, or showing Louis with words and touch just what it meant to love someone so wholly, so unconditionally. Loving like a house on fire until it consumed him. 

That their management didn't want it public was insignificant in the scheme of things -- of the band, of them. What mattered was what they had and what they were willing to give. 

Living with it was the problem. Each morning waking up so full that it eked out of his pores and into everything that he did until nothing else mattered except what he felt. Each time he put his hand on Louis's shoulder in public, or grabbed his arm, or turned to whisper in his ear, Harry felt the weight of it bear down on his chest like claustrophobia, so afraid that if he didn't do something it would crush him. Or worse, it would disappear. The fear that one day he'd wake up and it would have leaked out of him in the middle of the night and left him hollow. It was so integral to him now. It pushed everything else aside. Other people were only plot devices in their story, fleeting, that either stood in their way or let them go. But none of them compared. 

Harry lets go of his dependancies. He leaves the minibars untouched and stays home at nights. Women pass him daily but he finds what he needs when he comes back to their flat at nights, when he cooks Louis dinner and they lie entangled on the couch. He doesn't need anything else, money, notoriety, rivieras, other lives. All the other universes that didn't, couldn't. He's already got everything. 

 

~

 

"I lied before, when I said I couldn't wait forever." 

Louis voice is soft in Harry's ear, haunting in its sincerity, crackling low and steady under the noise of the ten-thousand strong crowd. 

"I would wait for you. For the rest of my life, actually."

This is it, then. This is the universe in which Harry gets it right.


End file.
